


Through The Years

by bluehooloovo



Category: Protector of the Small - Tamora Pierce
Genre: F/M, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Missing Scenes, Pre-Relationship, Vignettes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-20
Updated: 2015-12-20
Packaged: 2018-05-07 19:34:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,925
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5468396
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluehooloovo/pseuds/bluehooloovo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Buri and Raoul are the absolute best, and I was thrilled when I got the request for them. I hope you enjoy reading the story as much as I did writing it.</p>
<p>With thanks to [[name redacted until after author reveals]] for the beta.</p>
    </blockquote>





	Through The Years

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dirgewithoutmusic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dirgewithoutmusic/gifts).



> Buri and Raoul are the absolute best, and I was thrilled when I got the request for them. I hope you enjoy reading the story as much as I did writing it.
> 
> With thanks to [[name redacted until after author reveals]] for the beta.

Buri had never been on a boat in her life. She had only seen the ocean for the first time when they had arrived in Port Udayapur. It was...not horrible, once she got used to it, though poor Alanna didn’t seem to be adjusting very well. She spent almost all of her time hung over a rail, retching up anything they had managed to get her to eat. Buri tried to ignore her. There was nothing she could do to help, and Coram was with her.

Instead, she crossed to the opposite rail, leaning over to watch the water glide by below. The rail creaked as Alanna’s big Tortallan friend leaned on it next to her. She looked at him out of the corner of her eye. He grinned cheerfully at her, eyes dancing under a cap of black curls.

“So, Alanna said you wanted to take on the Saren army by yourself,” he said.

Her eyes narrowed, not sure if he was teasing her.

“She ever tell you about trying to take on the whole Tusaine army by herself?”

Buri relaxed, returning his smile. “No. Why was she in Tusaine?”

They talked for a while, trading stories of Alanna, and when Thayet came to find Buri and pull her away, Buri found that she was actually a little sad to leave, not that they would -- or could -- go far on the little courier ship. Raoul was actually pretty decent to talk to, more than most people.

* * *

In all the preparations for Thayet and Jonathan’s wedding, Buri and Raoul were together in trying to avoid every single one of them. One day, when Thayet was making ominous noises about things like dress fittings, Buri fled to the palace and the Knight Commander’s office. Raoul was seated at the desk, but he didn’t seem to be hard at work doing anything besides sharpening his dagger.

She leaned on the doorjamb. “Want to go for a ride?”

Raoul stood quickly. “Dear gods, yes.”

They met at the entrance to the Royal Forest, Buri on her pony Surefoot, and Raoul on his big gelding.

“Why don’t you switch to a horse?” Raoul asked as they started into the forest. “There are plenty of palace mounts you can use. We’re not exactly crowded with mountains down here.”

“Ponies are cleverer, mostly,” Buri said. “Hardier. As mean in a fight as a horse stallion.” She shrugged. “Thayet and me, we’ve been talking about starting a new force. Irregulars, she called them? But people who can go all over the kingdom, into places where the Own would be too much, or have too much trouble getting into. The hill country, with all your curst hidey-hole bandit camps and rough terrain. Small groups, living off the land...and mounted on ponies.”

“Quieter than the Own too,” Raoul said, nodding as he considered it. “With our big horses and bright shiny mail. A couple of squads of the Own, and one or two of those groups you’re talking about could spring a pretty neat trap. Keep the bandits focused on the Own crashing around behind them, and they never notice your irregulars sneaking in on the sides.”

Buri grinned at him. “Exactly. We've still a ways to go on getting all the details sorted, and of course we'll need to wait until Thayet's Queen," Buri added. "But I think it'll work."

"She's going to have trouble, especially if you want to let girls in," Raoul said, ducking under a low branch. "And she'll have trouble with the schools as well."

Buri shrugged. "No one says no to Thayet for very long, not when she really wants something." And Thayet had already expressed quite enough anger about sticks in the mud for Buri to almost feel sorry for them when she became Queen. Almost.

"And Jon's with her," Raoul said comfortably. “No one says no to him for very long, either. Even if he _is_ being more careful about that sort of thing after the coronation.”

"Not our headache, at least," Buri said. "We just bash people, we don't have to talk to them."

The talk turned to the one interesting part of the wedding celebrations: a tournament. Buri, being female and not a knight, couldn't participate in most of the events, but she was to do a demonstration of trick riding. Raoul, of course, would be competing in the lists, and was looking forward to bashing a few heads in particular.

It was late afternoon before they returned, Thayet's dress fitting plans for Buri thoroughly spoiled.

* * *

It had been a long, uphill battle to establish the Queen's Riders, as Raoul had predicted. But as _Buri_ had predicted, eventually Thayet won through. Buri stepped into what would be the Commander's office in the newly-finished barracks and couldn't resist a little twirl of joy. This was really happening! Their first trainees would arrive any day, and she, Thayet, and a former Carthaki slave called Sarge had worked out a training program for this first class of recruits. It was really happening.

Some stepped into the doorway, blocking the light from the lamps in the hall. With the light behind him, Buri couldn't see his face, but she didn't need to. The massive frame could only belong to Raoul.

His voice only confirmed it. "I thought you'd be here." He pulled a wrapped package from behind his back. "I got you something."

She accepted it, weighing it in her hand. It was small, but fairly heavy for its size. Metal?

"Go on, open it," Raoul urged, leaning casually against the doorframe.

Carefully, Buri unwrapped the canvas from around a brass nameplate that read, "Commander Buriram Tourakom" in large, clear letters. As she looked up at Raoul, he produced a hammer and a few nails. "I thought we could hang it right now."

Buri nodded, not trusting herself to speak. She was NOT going to break down in front of him. She was a K'mir, and a warrior, and she had her pride. 

He took the nameplate back from her. “Let me.”

They left a while later, shoulder to shoulder (well, shoulder to elbow), with the nameplate shining on the dark door behind them.

* * *

Buri and the Third Rider Group rode into camp not long before dawn, wet and shivering. Clothes changed and a hot cup of tea in her hands, she stood in the command tent, looking over Raoul's maps of the Hill Country. She traced a gorge on the map. "They're headed in this direction. If you can pen them in on this end, my Riders and I can come around the other side and we'll catch them between us."

Flyndan Whiteford, newly-promoted second-in-command of Third Company frowned. "Will you be able to hold your end of the line?"

Buri bristled at this implied slight to the abilities of her Riders, but before she could say something, Raoul said, "They'll hold it, Flyn. I've seen them fight." To Buri he said, "How much time do we need to give you to get into position?"

"Our mage can set up a speaking spell with one of yours. It shouldn't take long, there's always some kind of game trail down these gorges, and our ponies can handle it." She passed off her empty cup to the standard-bearer who was pouring drinks for the meeting and nodded to the men. "We'll leave right away."

After the battle, Buri visited the tent where the healers had set up. Raoul was getting a long gash on his arm stitched up, while he studiously looked everywhere but at the healer's work.

"What happened?" Buri asked, dragging a short stool over to the cot where he sat.

Raoul shook his head. "A bandit came up on my side while I was dealing with his friends. Anvil caught sight of him and kicked out. Didn't actually connect, but it got my neck out of the way. Any dead?"

She accepted the change of subject. "None of ours. Five of theirs. Your men and my Riders are binding them for transport. Where's the nearest magistrate?"

He shrugged. "Flyn will know. I'd have to check a map."

She nodded. As she stood to leave, she dropped a hand on his shoulder. "Take care of that arm, Raoul."

* * *

The party at with Raoul's family was precisely as excruciating as Buri expected it to be. She had to exercise every last bit of diplomacy that Thayet had tried to hammer into her head just to keep from pulling a dagger on Raoul's Great-aunt Sebila. And Raoul was doing his turn-into-a-block-of-wood trick that she was familiar with from the formal parties at the palace. She could hardly blame him. She wished she could do something like that.

But she had promised, and once they were away from Raoul's great-aunt, things were slightly better. "I've met hurroks with more subtlety," she murmured, too low for anyone except Raoul to hear. "And I think I'll pass on producing an heir for you right this very minute. That might be awkward."

Raoul tried to cover a laugh with a cough, but she could see him relax a little from his block of wood. "You do realize that now she'll expect to see you with a ring on your finger by next Midwinter."

"Remind me to be in Scanra." She considered for a moment. "No, the desert. Warmer."

"You should visit my tribe, the Sandrunners," Raoul said.

"As long as your tribe gives me a better welcome than your family..."

"Much," Raoul said fervently. "For a start, they don't expect you to marry me."

"Well, that will be a relief." Buri tried not to scowl as some of Raoul's relatives -- cousins, maybe? They had been introduced, Buri just hadn't bothered paying attention -- approached them, trying to pull Raoul into conversation.

The rest of the evening continued in much the same way. They'd get a few minutes to themselves, to talk and pretend that they weren't at a party, and then someone would always come and interrupt them.

When it was finally late enough that they could leave without giving offense, Buri and Raoul wasted no time in leaving. As they rode through Corus, Raoul actually grinned. "That was probably the best time I've ever had at one of these. Still horrible, but better. Thank you for coming with me."

“I told Kel, what’s more appropriate than a sacrifice for friendship at Midwinter?”

Raoul grinned down at her. “I think that’s supposed to be more along the lines of giving up a seat by the fire, not putting up with Great-aunt Sebila at full bellow.”

“Well, I haven’t fought any armies single-handedly recently. I didn’t want to get soft,” Buri said with a straight face.

He laughed, and they walked together in comfortable silence for a few minutes, the only sound the muffled clop of their mounts’ hooves. The guards on the City Gate let them pass into the Palace without comment, though Raoul and Buri passed each of them a coin for Midwinter luck.

When they reached the split in the path between the Rider barracks and those of the Own, they drew their mounts to a halt. Raoul cleared his throat, looking as awkward as the “feckless gawp of an overage boy” that his aunt had once called him. “I don’t suppose… I mean, I’ve that history of the Bazhir that I told you of, that you wanted to see. In my room. If you’d like.”

She tipped her head back to meet his eyes, smiling. “I’d like that, Raoul.”

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Yuletide!


End file.
